Here's a pic of my clearance cut. Wouldn't need to clearance it at all if I hadn't modified the core support to work with the wedged subframe.

Made a template and then killed another shelf to make it. I love electric shears.

Went a little overboard welding...but overkill is perfect in my book. Had about an inch overlap on what was left, so I fully welded the top and then welded the bottom as far as it followed the straight edge. It's super strong now. I will weld in the rubber isolator mounts once I get a pair...mine are MIA.

Radiator (3rd gen) & fan (Volvo something) fit like a glove now.

Also ended up getting a pair of door skins locally. Got a good deal on them and I'm gonna try it myself. Gonna need some youtube research. haha

So the door frames are getting blasted and my test fender is at the painter's with 8oz of BMW B38 and another batch of custom Volvo 492.

I've been busy trying to build a better mousetrap. I cut a new bezel for the Speedhut gauges and the fit was good - like always. I've done like 3 different stages over the years. But with the whole dash out I saw a way to make it better...so I started using some scrap stock and making changes. Now it's deeper and the gauge panel is angled up to your viewing angle. I'm on rev4 right now and have a couple of little tweaks to make, but it's getting really close. The last version is all made in one piece and thermoformed on a hot wire. Changed the gauge placement too...I think it looks more modern now. And my replacement faces came in so I swapped out the "Giants" blue for the new "Panthers" blue stuff. Much better.

2006:

2008:

2015:

I'm going to backlight the "Camaro" in the center like I did the "SS" on my Beretta project. And I just bought some SPDT 3-pos rocker switches that I can wire in for the fan etc as ecm/off/override on. with an LED indicator each. The big round holes in the center part are for Vintage air vents. Hoping I don't need to add AC, but I'll have the vents to do it if I do. The LEDs in the gauge face are the signals, highs, parking brake, alt light and check engine light.

Found my color! Finally. That BMW Midnight Blue looks great. Very similar to the stock 80 Dark Blue, but it doesn't turn blurple and the pearls give the metallic a little more flop. So depending on the light it's a little darker than the stock, or brighter reflection than the stock. I really like it a lot. I was almost getting ready to make a compromise on color...so I'm glad I don't have to!

I'm taking the rest of the body panels down to bare metal now. I got the door frames and the core support blasted. And I'm going to shoot epoxy on the fenders and trunk lid too while I'm doing the doors. The pass fender got creased and repaired at some point...and the driver's fender had an antenna hole removed. I'm pretty sure these cars all come with the antenna in the glass. I wonder if someone added a CB at some point to outrun the smokies...

I also found a surprise on the trunk closeout panel. I see the replacements are cheap, but I wonder about fitment. Gonna do some homework there.

Made a blockoff plate for the wiper motor hole in the cowl. Once I cut that part of the firewall out it would have been a waterfall inside the car! (Kinda like a god damn Beretta) Also got some standoffs on Amazon to mount the EFI HEI coil on the firewall...I think it will work out nice.

A friend on NastyZ noticed I had the smaller radiator support opening. So I cut the wings off, widened the opening and then bolted them back on. Should keep the air right where it needs to be...and if I have to take the wings off at some point to mount an AC condenser it's just 4 bolts. I also finalized the radiator mounts and drilled some drainage holes so it doesn't fill with water.

Picked up an AMD deck filler too and WOW it fits like ****! I'll be better off fixing my OEM one and sending that POS back.

Been a while...so I'll just copy & paste my update to the NastyZ thread...haha

Ok...no updates in a while. Partially because I've been busy with other stuff...partially because my photo hosting site sucks now. So I switched to photobucket.

Got the basic body work done on all the steel and put down epoxy. Hit the inside of the new door skins with Lizard Skin sound control. Put the door skins on and sealed the seams. Rebuilt the hinges, aligned the doors and burned some of the new seam sealer welding the god awful door gaps on the driver side. What's the best way to seal all that back up after the metal work is done? I'm a little worried about the folded over area with the skin & frame where it all had a nice coat of epoxy & sealer that is not burned off I'm sure.

And I've been working on a brake retrofit. I did the 13.4" C6 Z51 brakes up front and it made the 11.6" Blazer rotors out back look tiny. So I wanted to engineer an interchangeable rotor combo for drag & street wheels. C6 Z51 rear rotors are 13.0" and I found that C6 Z06 rear rotors are 13.4"-and a visual match to the Z51 fronts. So the graphic designer in me has to make it happen.

The ebrake shoe is the same between Blazer and Vette. Check. Center bore is the same. Check. Offset is way off - but a spacer behind the backing plate will fix that. Rotor thickness is about 0.200" different...but shaving pads will fix that. There is enough difference in radius between the 11.6 and 13.4 to make an extension bracket to hang the Blazer caliper further out on the big rotor. So I made some templates out of plastic at work and got it all figured out. I just need to fab the final ones out of steel.

By using the Blazer caliper and pads (which are bigger) I can swap between street & drag brakes without bleeding the calipers or popping out the axles. Should be a 10min job per side. I like the sound of that. Oh - and I found GG friction rated Blazer pads at Advance so I'm all good to go there. Maybe this car will even stop after the rebirth!

Looking good, it's nice to see the update. Wow, welding to close the gap between the door and quarter panel.It looks like it turned out well. That is the after picture above the just welded pic?Keep up the good work.

That's the before pic. The lens distortion doesn't show the gap all that well, but it was far too much on the top and bottom of the driver door. And that's right where you'd see it every time you opened the door handle so I knew it would drive me nuts. Passenger side is better, but just needs a little correction at the top by the A-pillar & fender and the front at the bottom by the rocker. Goodmark is garbage.